The present invention relates to a child resistant disposable lighter and in particular, to a disposable lighter which, in a locked default state, has its fuel delivery lever arrested by a lever stopping device that prevents depression of the lever. This lever stopping device renders the lighter difficult to operate by young children.
Pursuant to Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) inquiries into the safety of present day disposable lighters, and the likelihood of rule making mandating that the design of disposable lighters be child resistant, the present invention pertains to a child resistant disposable lighter.
As is well known in the art, a typical disposable lighter includes a compartment portion containing a fuel such as butane, and an upper portion. The upper portion contains an arrangement wherein a flint is in contact with the bottom of a flintwheel, and a valve means delivers fuel in response to being actuated by a lever mounted in a fulcrum arrangement such that depressing the lever actuates the valve to deliver fuel. The valve opening is located proximately toward the front of the flintwheel/flint arrangement, and the fuel delivery lever is located proximately behind the flintwheel. The arrangement is designed such that the lighter can be grasped between the fingers, wherein the thumb is used to rotate the flintwheel backward toward the lever thus generating sparks from the flint/flintwheel interface in the direction of the valve opening. Essentially instantaneously after the thumb rolls off the flintwheel, it depresses the fuel lever to release fuel. The fuel is exposed to the sparks and ignited to thereby produce a flame.
The simplicity of the state of the art design renders it easily operated by young children who may encounter the lighter. Many fires and injuries have been caused by young children setting fires with such lighters. Fires started in such a manner are frequent, and thus, the CPSC has considered mandating that these lighters be child-resistant.
Several designs for child-resistant lighters are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,603 to Cirami relates to a cigarette lighter in which a locking mechanism is provided partially under a valve-actuating pushbutton and extends into a compartment appended to, but distinct from, a fuel compartment. This Cirami patent is entirely incorporated herein by reference. The locking mechanism in the Cirami device relocks itself after each depression of the pushbutton. In particular, one end of a stiffly flexible, spring steel wire is held firmly in place in the compartment. Another end of the spring steel wire forms a probe extending into a channel provided in the underside of the pushbutton. The spring steel wire, in a locked configuration, prevents depression of the pushbutton by engaging a low ceiling on the underside of the pushbutton. A portion of the spring steel wire in the form of a loop extending outward from the lighter is accessible by an operator and may be suitably moved by the operator thereby causing the probe to move within the channel in the underside of the pushbutton.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,596 to Morris, Sr. (also entirely incorporated herein by reference) relates to a cigarette lighter having a stop member slidably mounted thereon for releasably engaging a gas valve actuating lever. In particular, a spring biased stop member is slidably mounted on a top portion of a conventional portable disposable cigarette lighter. The stop member is biased so as to place one of its ends under the lighter's gas valve actuating lever so as to prevent movement of the lever in a direction which may open the gas valve. The lever may be actuated once the stop member is pushed in a direction opposite to the biasing force of the spring so as to slide the end which is under the lighter's gas valve outward.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,335 to Loveless (also entirely incorporated herein by reference) relates to a cigarette lighter in which rotation of a spark-producing wheel is limited. In particular, the spark-producing wheel may be rotated in one direction to deliver a spark toward a nozzle through which gaseous fuel is passed, thereby operating the lighter and causing fuel to ignite. Rotation of the spark-producing wheel in the other direction may deliver a spark away from the nozzle. The spark-producing wheel has a pin-shaped structure attached thereto which serves to limit the rotation of the wheel to under 360 by contacting the housing structure. Thus, whether a spark is produced depends upon the direction of attempted rotation and the position of the pin-shaped structure relative to the housing structure. In theory, once the lighter is operated and the fuel ignited, and the pin-shaped structure has traversed its entire path of travel, subsequent operation of the lighter is impeded since the pin-shaped structure comes into contact with the housing, preventing a spark from occurring in the vicinity of the fuel nozzle.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,547,566 to Tamarin and U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,286 to Lockwood relate to lighters having orientation sensing mechanisms which hinder or prevent actuation of the lighter in an inverted position. Unfortunately such mechanisms may not provide a sufficient degree of safety to young children who tamper with the lighter, because they merely hinder operation in prescribed orientations. The Tamarin and Lockwood patents are entirely incorporated herein by reference.
Kordecki, U.S. Pat. No. 4,758,152, McDonough, U.S. Pat. No. 5,092,764, and Cirami, U.S. Pat. No. 5,215,458 all show safety mechanisms used in connection with lighters. These documents also are entirely incorporated herein by reference.
Many of the aforedescribed safety mechanisms and others like them suffer from a number of limitations. Some of these designs are unnecessarily complicated, rendering them difficult to manufacture and subject to mechanical failure with use. Lighters, like the one described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,603 to Cirami, impose limits on the useful fuel compartment space by incorporating portions of the safety mechanism into that area of the lighter. In particular, Cirami describes using more than half of the fuel compartment to secure a spring which prevents the fuel delivery lever from being depressed. Such a design would shorten the useful life of the lighter because the fuel capacity is significantly diminished.
Other safety designs fail to conform to present day lighter configurations and often resort to substantially reconfiguring the lighter, or utilizing useful space in a conventional configuration, as in the Cirami design. Some child resistant disposable lighter designs render the lighter too unwieldy to be operated easily. Such lighters may require the operator to turn the lighter in their hand in order to disable the safety mechanism and then to return the lighter to its operating position before use.
Another disadvantage present in previous designs is the ease with which the safety mechanisms can be defeated, thus limiting the design's utility in preventing its use by young children. Such is the case in designs which, in addition to the conventional components, such as the flintwheel and fuel lever, also have an additional lever or knob associated with the safety mechanism, which must be actuated in order to operate the lighter. Such additional features invite experimentation from curious youngsters which could ultimately lead to the defeat of the safety feature. Another important feature is a child resistant lighter's ability to return to a default safety state so that even if the safety feature is defeated once, the lighter will automatically reset the safety mechanism after an attempt is made to operate the lighter after the safety is defeated.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a lighter which is child resistant having a default safety state wherein the safety mechanism is reset after each attempted use. It is a further object of the present invention to provide a child resistant lighter design which is minimally complicated from a manufacturing standpoint wherein the lighter does not have to be substantially altered from a conventional configuration to incorporate the safety feature. It is another object of the invention to provide a child resistant lighter which adopts a simple design which makes the lighter rigorous and long lasting. It is yet another object of the invention to provide a child resistant lighter which does not utilize useful space, such as the fuel compartment, to incorporate the safety mechanism into the existing design configuration. It is still a further objective to provide a child resistant lighter whose safety mechanism is not easily defeated and does not invite curiosity or experimentation. It is an additional objective to provide a lighter whose safety mechanism can be deactivated while the lighter is in a normal operating position.